Privacy International deputy director Eric King said the case
showed the immoral practice of the security agency.

“If spying on human rights NGOs isn’t off-limits for GCHQ,
then what is?” he said. “Clearly our spy agencies have lost their
way. For too long they’ve been trusted with too much power, and
too few rules for them to protect against abuse. How many more
problems with GCHQ’s secret procedures have to be revealed for
them to be brought under control?”

He called on the government to create new laws that would prevent
the agencies from spying on NGOs and charitable organizations.

“Trying to pass off such failings as ‘technical,’ or
significant changes in law as mere ‘clarifications,’ has become a
tiring defense for those who know the jig is up,” King said.
“The courts are begrudgingly helping to ensure that the sun
is slowly setting on GCHQ’s Wild West ways. Now we need
parliament to step in to fix what should have been fixed a long
time ago.”

“Last year it was revealed that GCHQ were eavesdropping on
sacrosanct lawyer-client conversations. Now we learn they’ve been
spying on human rights groups. What kind of signal are British
authorities sending to despotic regimes and those who risk their
lives to challenge them all over the world? Who is being casual
with human life now?”

This case is one of many mounted by organizations after the
Snowden revelations.

In February, the IPT ruled that US/UK data sharing practice had
been operating illegally for seven years, claiming the agencies
had breached human rights law.

In response to the findings, Legal Resources Centre national
director Janet Love said: “The [center] is deeply concerned
to learn that communications of our organization have been
subject to unlawful interception by GCHQ. As a public interest
law firm, our communications are self-evidently confidential, and
we consider this to be a serious breach of the rights of our
organization and the individuals concerned.

“We can no longer accept the conduct of the intelligence
services acting under such a pernicious veil of secrecy, and we
will be taking immediate action to try to establish more
information … We are particularly grateful for Liberty’s efforts
in spearheading this litigation and making it possible for this
information to be brought to light.”